Overview of alliancing research and practice in the construction industry

Abstract

The increasing attention to alliancing in the construction industry has led to a number of studies in recent years. It is time to present the state of the art of the existing studies on alliancing, identify research gap and opportunity and provide suggestions for future research. This article launches a review and analysis of more than 70 alliancing literatures produced in the last decade, which is organized and synthesized following a five-stage knowledge progression framework. In this way, the limitations of previous studies and knowledge gaps can be identified. Despite the fact that previous studies on alliancing offered various degrees of value to the alliancing practice, some limitations and debates remain awaiting further investigation. In addition, the significant changes associated with alliancing also provide opportunities for future research. Drawing upon transaction cost economics, the article concludes that (i) the efficiency of alliancing in the construction industry needs to be examined, and (ii) the cost management and control practices used in alliancing are worth being explored. Possible research methods are also proposed for carrying out future studies. The information presented in this article may guide scholars and practitioners' endeavour in new alliancing research and practice.

Performance of Project Alliancing in Australasia: a Digest of Infrastructure Development from 2008 to 2013

“…Project alliancing is suitable for the delivery of projects with particular characteristics; high-risk, tight timeframe, complex stakeholder issues and complex external environments, however, there is no guarantee that this will lead to optimum outcomes in practice (Chen et al, 2012). Ross (2003) suggests that alliances are being undertaken by clients without sufficient commitment to underlying principles.…”

Understanding Collaboration in Integrated Forms of Project Delivery by Taking a Risk-Uncertainty Based Perspective

“…It can be assumed that in both alliances and partnering, for example, the rated element values may vary. This is demonstrated by the experience and expert opinion documented in numerous partnering studies [76][77][78][79] that report on quite a varied level of commitment to best-for-project outcomes and studies of alliancing [51,70,[80][81][82][83]. While the cited studies present some general picture that can be interpreted in the ratings presented in Figure 2 we acknowledge that these may vary by at least one point in the scales.…”

A Comparison of Project Alliancing and Lean Construction

“…All parties' expectations and commercial arrangements are aligned with the project outcomes and the project is driven by a best-for-project mindset, where all parties either win together, or lose together (Chen et al 2012;Walker et al 2013). The contract is designed around a non-adversarial legal and commercial framework with all disputes and conflicts resolved from within the alliance (Henneveld 2006).…”

“…IPD's use is mostly concentrated in America, yet the principles of lean are more prevalent worldwide. Alliancing is often considered at the top end of collaborative and relational contracting (Ross 2003) and is more widely distributed across the globe (Chen et al 2012;Ingirige and Sexton 2006). In addition, IPD and Alliancing have often been used for different types of projects (Lahdenperä 2012).…”